When they got into The George, in the evening, they found Conan and Anthony sitting at the back booth, in front of what looked like a veritable mound of bread. Sitting across from them was a young woman with brown hair, hazel eyes and a blade of a nose. She looked towards them and extended a hand and spoke, in a pleasant contralto, "Hi. I'm Laura Miller. You must think I'm the most unreliable person alive, but I simply couldn't come in before. I had to take care of some family matters . . . But I'm here now, and I'm free to interview for the job, if you still want to consider me. And I brought some samples of my baking with me."
"Consider her," Anthony said. He picked a roll from the confusion of bread. "She makes this Italian bread . . . My mom would weep, I tell you."
Tom, grinning, turned towards her. "Well, as you can see, I have to consider you. And we were taking care of family matters, too. I have no idea how to interview you, just now, my mind is still in a whirl. So . . . is there anything you want to tell me?"
The woman blinked at him, then looked toward Kyrie, then, perhaps having decided that if they were crazy they weren't, at least, unpleasant, rattled off quickly, "I can do gourmet cooking, but really, I don't like it as much as a variety of good plain cooking. I truly do need to bake, though. Cookies, biscuits, breads, muffins, scones, pies, fancy pastries, whatever. I like making breads and pies and biscuits and muffins most of all, though. Cornbread's fun to make, both Northern and Southern. So's gingerbread. With or without rum sauce. Fresh pitas are like a miracle, puffing themselves up like little balloons. Stews and soups and prep cooking are satisfying, too. But not as good as baking. But I can get the bucket of scrams ready for morning rush, and get the onions and peppers for morning and lunch rush, and chop the salad, and mix up the tsatsiki.
"I can do a lot of prep cooking. I can do quantity cooking. I can run an industrial dishwasher. But I really love baking. Just don't ask me to do gourmet dinners where everything needs to be perfectly plated. My idea of decorative plating is to put the juice with the cherries and onions over the pork loin rather than beside it. And maybe to have carrots and green beans by the pork loin instead of potatoes and corn. But fancy plating with everything all pointing in perfect directions and swirled sauces? It all tastes the same in the mouth, anyway. And unless it's someone's birthday, I don't frost cakes fancy. Just tasty. I like to do one-offs, but that's why I don't like fancy frosting every day. Special should be special. And pies are either lattice, pierced, open, or have a couple of shapes out with tart cutters. If The George wants Martha Stewart, you can hire her. But I do use my grandma's pie crust recipe. And she won blue ribbons." She stopped, giving the impression that she'd run out of breath.
And Kyrie looked at Tom and found him looking at her. And she wondered how the woman would do with shifters and madness, but, hell, Anthony seemed to do well enough even while being totally clueless. And frankly, the list of breads was enough to make her want to drool.
She winked at Tom. He winked back and they said at the same time, "You're hired."
Just at that moment, she thought she smelled a vague shifter's scent beneath the smell of all the baking. Was their new employee a shifter?
But Tom was saying, "We'll discuss terms, okay? But we're flexible, since one of the really important qualities I wanted was someone who could bake." He'd somehow got hold of a little curlicue of a roll sprinkled with what looked like cheese, and was eating it, merrily. "And you certainly can do that."
Laura smiled, and at that moment the bell behind the front door tinkled. Edward Ormson, whom Kyrie always thought looked like an older and better-dressed version of Tom, came in. He was pulling a flight bag, and looked up at the group of them with a quizzical smile. "Oh, good," he said, to no one in particular. He looked at Tom, "I assume everything is well and you still haven't eaten anyone?"
Did Laura's eyes widen just a little? Kyrie couldn't tell, and Tom was laughing. "No, Dad. I haven't. And yeah, everything is fine."
"First day they opened the passes, so first day I could get here. I will go and check in at the hotel later, but I thought I'd come and see how you were doing, and make sure everything was okay."